Twist of Fate (2 page)

“All right, Miss Jessett,” Cage said mildly as he threw himself down onto the chair across from her. He cocked one bushy brow as he saw the second margarita glass and then reached out to pick it up. “Let's have it. Why did your brother send you?”

“He didn't send me. I got here all on my own.”

With grave patience he inclined his head as if congratulating her on her ability to board an airplane by herself. “Again: why?”

Hannah smiled and set down her glass. “You're in luck, Mr. Cage. I have come to offer you a measure of salvation.”

“Oh, Christ.”

“Not that kind of salvation, I'm afraid. We guidance counselors try to stick to our areas of expertise. I'm offering professional guidance, not theology.”

He gave her a level look, night-dark eyes examining her face warily. Then he tried the drink in his hand. Cool surprise flickered in his gaze. “How the hell did you get them to mix a decent margarita?”

“Bribery.”

He nodded. “Congratulations. Going to try that tactic on me?”

“No, Mr. Cage. I'm not going to try bribery on you. It wouldn't work.”

“You're playing games with me, Hannah Jessett. It would be better if you didn't.”

“Better for whom? I have nothing to lose. For that matter, neither has my brother. Your group of investors is moving in on his firm like Attila the Hun. You've made it very clear that you're going to take over Accelerated Design.”

Cage shrugged and lounged back against the webbing of the chair. “Any reason why I shouldn't? The firm has some excellent, highly marketable software products but it's a mess financially. Your brother is only twenty-nine years old, Hannah. He may be brilliant at software design but knows nothing about management. Accelerated Design is a sitting duck for me.”

“Precisely my point.” Hannah's leg protested angrily as she shifted position in the chair. Her fingers tightened around the glass in her hand. Pain control this afternoon might require more than one margarita.

“Pardon me, but I think I may have missed your, uh, point.”

“A sitting duck. What do you need with another sitting duck target, Mr. Cage? Surely you're more of a sportsman than that? Where's the challenge in launching an assault on a small, badly managed software house such as Accelerated Design? You're a creature of habit. That's your problem.”

Cage paused thoughtfully and then said very gently, “Habit?”

“Ummm. You've been on a roll for the past nine years. Ever since you demolished that company in California. What was the name? I remember reading about it in the
Wall Street Journal
recently when they did a profile on you.”

“Ballantine Manufacturing.”

Hannah marveled at the perfectly neutral tone of his words. Whatever had happened with Ballantine Manufacturing could not have been a neutral event for him. It had set him on the course he had followed unerringly for the past nine years. “You were only about thirty or thirty-one at the time, weren't you? After that, there was, apparently, no stopping you.”

“I've been reasonably successful.”

“You've been a steamroller. There's a difference, I think.”

“No, Miss Jessett, there isn't. Being successful in my line of work means being a steamroller.”

“As a professional guidance counselor, allow me to disagree. You're just in the habit of launching victorious assaults on companies such as my brother's. Habit, Mr. Cage. You're not moving in on him out of necessity. You don't need his firm. You just saw it sitting there looking vulnerable and decided to grab it. I'd think you'd want more challenge, but that's your problem. I'm not here to alter your entire way of doing business.”

“Lucky me.”

Hannah gritted her teeth against the pain in her leg and kept her smile intact. “I'm here only to persuade you to lay off my brother's firm. As you, yourself, said, he's young. He needs time to bring the management situation at Accelerated Design back under control. If you take over the firm, he'll be out in the cold. You'll have obtained a company with some interesting products, it's true, but you hardly need one more of those. You've got lots of them already.”

“I'm supposed to walk away from such easy pickings just because you've flown down here to plead your brother's case?”

“Oh, no, Mr. Cage. I wouldn't dream of appealing to your compassion or sympathy. You've already confirmed that you're short on both commodities, remember?”

A curious smile edged his mouth. “I remember. So what are you offering that will tempt me to forget about Accelerated Design?”

Hannah gathered her courage. “A simple game of chance.”

“A game of chance.” He took a slow swallow of the margarita, his gaze on the pool. “That wasn't quite what I expected, Hannah.”

“Yes, I know. As I said, you've become a creature of habit. The habit of victory, whether in business or here in Vegas. I'm taking an educated guess that after nine years of hollow victories, you've become rather jaded, Mr. Cage. Everything's too easy for you now. Moving in on my brother's firm will provide no new sport, only the same temporary shot of adrenaline. You need a bit of real excitement in your life and I'm going to provide it.” Hannah waited, her own adrenaline pumping furiously into her bloodstream.

“Excitement. That's an interesting thought. I take it you can do some fairly exotic things with that cane, then?”

“I said a game of chance. I meant cards, Mr. Cage. I'm proposing that you let your future hinge on the luck of the draw. You come to Vegas for a few days every summer, but have you ever risked something really important on a twist of fate? Have you ever won or lost a business deal on a bet? Think of the novelty of it.”

He stared at her and then he laughed. “I do see the novelty of it, Hannah. But the stupidity is far more evident. Jesus Christ, lady, you must be out of your head. Are you serious?”

“Very.”

“Even a guidance counselor couldn't be that naive.”

Hannah leaned forward earnestly. “Gambling is apparently your one form of recreation, Mr. Cage. You're here now because you always come here at this time of year for a break. You're in the mood to gamble and I'm offering some interesting stakes. How can you resist? We draw for the highest card. Two out of three wins. If I win you give up your plans to take over my brother's firm. If you win…” She lifted one shoulder fatalistically.

“I take over? I can do that already. Any way you look at it, all I get out of the deal is a shot at losing.”

She shook her head slowly. “No, you get a break from doing business in the same, habitual fashion. You also get a break from your habitual form of recreation. I'm offering you a gamble with very large stakes. You see, I loaned my brother some money to help him start Accelerated Design. I took the repayment in stock. I now own a sizeable chunk. If I lose, I'll hand over my shares to you. It will make your takeover infinitely cheaper and less troublesome because you will hold more than enough stock to put you in control. Surely that's a more interesting proposition than a game of blackjack inside the casino.”

There was a pause and then Gideon asked, “Just out of sheer, unadulterated curiosity, how did you know about my annual trip to Vegas?”

“I'm aware that you come here once or twice during the summer. Personally, I can't see why anyone would leave Tucson to come to Vegas in the summer. They're both deserts. But you've been doing it for years. My brother heard it from someone on theAccelerated Design Board of Directors. He said you limit yourself to one or two trips every twelve months or so and stay only a few days each time. But while you're here, you're rumored to bet very heavily. Not my idea of an annual vacation, but to each his own.”

“Thank you for your tolerance. Vacation is the right word, by the way. Vegas isn't business for me. I don't do business the way I take a vacation.” He spaced the words out carefully, as though she weren't very intelligent.

Hannah ignored the warning. “Think about it, Mr. Cage. Think about the unique opportunity I'm giving you. Have any of your other sitting ducks ever offered you a chance to win or lose on the draw of a card?”

“None have been quite that idiotic,” he admitted. “What did your brother say about all this?”

“I didn't tell him exactly what I had in mind.”

“I'll just bet you didn't.”

Hannah smiled meaningfully. “That's all I'm asking, Mr. Cage. That you make a bet. An important bet. Try it; you'll like it. It will give you a break from the monotony of your usual mode of business. I think you need a break.” She reached for the cane and started to get to her feet.

Automatically Cage got up and grasped her arm. He frowned slightly as he took in the wince she couldn't quite hide. “How bad's the leg?”

Startled by the question, Hannah glanced up at him. “Bad enough. I was in a car accident a few weeks ago. They're going to have to operate on my knee the day after tomorrow.”

“Then what?”

She smiled. “Therapy for a while and then I get to go on
my
annual vacation. I'm going to walk along a Caribbean beach and do a lot of swimming. It's supposed to be very good for getting the leg back into shape.”

“I see. You don't spend your vacations in Vegas?”

“No, Mr. Cage. I don't find gambling very amusing. It's your style of recreation, not mine. At a wild guess I'd say gambling appeals to you because it seems to provide an alternative to the precision and calculation with which you normally operate, but I doubt that it gives you a real change of pace. As a form of recreation it probably doesn't work very well for you in the long run.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Because you probably play the way you work: lots of skill and concentration. It's not really a change from business for you. All gambling does is inject more unknowns into the situation. Still, that must provide some diversion. My little game of chance will do more for you because the stakes are more meaningful.”

He kept his hand under her arm for a few steps as they walked back toward the hotel entrance, dropping it only when Hannah calmly pulled away. He continued to pad barefoot along beside her. “I take it you wouldn't get the same charge out of this, er, game of chance you're suggesting as you think I would?”

“I'm afraid not.”

He eyed her assessingly. “I think you're lying. I believe you would find it very exhilarating. Otherwise you would never have proposed it.”

She came to a halt at the glass doors and turned to face him. She was leaning very heavily on the cane now but she managed to keep her expression aloof and reasonably serene. “I don't really care what you believe about my motives. My only concern is to talk you into taking the chance. I'm staying here in the hotel. Room 432. Call me this evening after you've had a chance to consider my proposal. All or nothing, Mr. Cage. Win or lose, for once the House doesn't get a cut. How can you resist?”

“Are all guidance counselors this bizarre in their approach?”

“Nope. Some would give you a twenty-page test to determine your true interests and abilities. Then they'd tell you what you already know: you're a born genius at business and you like the occasional bit of gambling—as long as the stakes are high enough to make it interesting.”

Cage opened the door. “Tell me, Hannah Jessett, are you really very good at your work?”

“One of the best. I have a talent for it.” She moved the cane cautiously onto the step, avoiding the gravel that had proven so treacherous earlier. “Call me, Mr. Cage. I'll be at the hotel until tomorrow afternoon. Then I leave for Seattle.”

“That sounds like an ultimatum.”

“It is. I'm giving it because I've got one hanging over my own head. I have to be in the hospital the day after tomorrow. I don't have time to string this out.” She didn't look back as she made her way into the air-conditioned hallway. The glass door hissed shut behind her.

Before she turned the corner at the far end of the hall, Hannah glanced back once. Cage was still standing on the step, watching her. Her first thought as she rounded the corner and disappeared from his sight was that Gideon Cage looked surprisingly interesting in a swimsuit. Not at all like a spider or a snake.

Her second thought was that if he did call that evening she would suggest they eat at one of the half dozen restaurants in the hotel. It would save having to drive some place. She was getting better about driving, but Hannah still avoided it whenever possible, especially in a strange environment. Since the accident, it had taken a great deal of nerve just to be a passenger in a car. It took even more to get behind the wheel herself.

She was getting better. The butterflies in her stomach had only fluttered lethargically during the cab ride in from the airport that day. But there was no sense adding any additional strain to the evening. If Cage agreed to the bet, she would be nervous enough as it was.